Vodafone's Qatari unit set for flotation

Vodafone is preparing for an initial public offering of its Qatari subsidiary, with a sale of about 20 per cent of the shares expected before the end of the year.

In December, a consortium led by the UK-based operator won a licence to break the mobile phone monopoly in Qatar, one of the world's richest nations, seeing off competition from Verizon Communications of the US and Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates.

The company declined to estimate what the Qatari business might be worth when floated.

However, in the most recent IPO of a mobile operator in the region, Zain, the third operator in Saudi Arabia, Qatar's much larger neighbour, recently sold 50 per cent of its shares for $1.8bn, in a heavily oversubscribed IPO.

Zain Saudi Arabia's shares made their debut on the open market at more than twice the initial offer price, valuing the company at close to $8bn. However, any comparisons with Vodafone's Qatari business should be tempered by Saudi's much larger population - 27m compared with less than 1m in Qatar.

Qatar is the last Arab country to open its telecommunications sector to competition and is seen as an important Middle Eastern asset by Vodafone, which aims to derive a third of its adjusted earnings from emerging markets by 2012. The shift of focus is designed to help offset falling sales in saturated European markets.

Although Qatar's mobile penetration is already more than 100 per cent, the country is expected to double its population in the next 15 years.

Source:http://www.ft.com

Vodafone customers get Madonna's album a week early

Vodafone customers are to be granted early access to Madonna's new album. "Hard Candy", the pop legend's 11th studio album for Warner Bros records is due to launch globally on 28th April, but Vodafonies will be able to listen a week early.

Starting on April 21st seven tracks from "Hard Candy" will be released at a rate of one a day counting down the week before the album is available. Each track will remain live for 24 hours for download before being replaced by the next one.

Vodafone customers will also have access to Madonna's mini site on Vodafone live! which will include one week of exclusive, associated mobile content, including ringtones, ringback tones and SMS tones.

Vodafone customers in selected markets including Spain, Portugal, Germany and Belgium will get exclusive mobile access to the newly released single "4 Minutes", effective immediately.

Vodafone to offer customer services on your handset

Vodafone has announced that it will launch advanced customer services directly on the handset to give Vodafone customers customer care and billing information in real-time.

The company says the service will not only provide customers with a "self care" facility but also gives Vodafone an added opportunity to provide interactive promotions and tutorials, such as step-by-step guides on how to use the mobile internet to download music or how to send an MMS.

With software provided by SNAPin Software, Vodafone will begin a phased roll out of the on-device self care service from this year.

The service will be available on open OS handsets, including S60, UIQ and Microsoft Windows Mobile, to begin with, with the aim to extend to the majority of handsets on offer from Vodafone over time.

The SNAPin service lets customers navigate an on-screen visual menu of options which customers can use to answer questions or solve their problems right on the handset.

Customers also have the option to connect through to the call centre, or to get an automatic response directly on their contract mobile phone or pay as you go phone.

RIM And Vodafone Buddy Up On BlackBerry

Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile phone company by sales, said it will add the BlackBerry system to its lineup as one of its "preferred consumer operating platforms."

The deal builds on RIM's strategy of expanding into the broader retail consumer market, moving away from its traditional dependence on corporations and government agencies.

It has been seeking to woo general consumers with multimedia-heavy handsets such as the BlackBerry Pearl. More than a third of the Waterloo, Ontario-based company's subscribers are now classified as noncorporate or nongovernment. It had a total of 12 million users at the end of the quarter ended Dec. 1.

"This deepening of the strategic relationship between the two companies will see Vodafone and RIM concentrating on driving continued growth in business segments, and specifically, focusing on growing broader adoption in the consumer segment," the companies said in a statement.

Jens Schulte-Bockum, Vodafone's global director of terminals, said the partnership will allow the companies to deliver simple-to-use services and lower costs. He said he expects consumers to be attracted to the BlackBerry???s messaging and e-mail, Internet access and range of multimedia capabilities including music and imaging functionality.
Source:http://www.forbes.com/

Vodafone 2008 Lineup Leaked In Entirety: Palm Wanda, Nokia Dora, BlackBerry "9000", More

HP's Oak is just the beginning: the rest of Vodafone's apparent lineup for the coming year also found its way to Boy Genius Report, which proudly presents.

The Palm Wanda is "high-tier," runs Windows Mobile 6.1, and will be launched in September 2008 as the successor to the Treo 500v. A tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE handset with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA, it has a 320x240 display, a 2 megapixel camera and GPS

The Nokia Dora is an e65-like sliderphone with Wifi and GPS, a UK280 price tag, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and 3.6 Mbps HSDPA. It has a 320x320 display, microSD card slot and quad-band GSM.
RIM's Blackberry Pearl 2, the 8110, isn't priced yet, but will have quad-band GSM, a 240x260 display, a 2 megapixel digicam and bluetooth. It also has trackball navigation and Blackberry's distinctive 2-letters-per-number keypad. It will appear immediately (and we'll almost certainly be getting a look at this on Monday)

The ODM v16xx is a slab-like QWERTY smartphone with a budget price ($250 or so), 2.5G data and a 1.3 megapixel camera: it looks kind of like a Moto Q but a year late. Or two years late, since it won't appear until September 2008.
The HP Silver, to be offered in July for about $500, is a 7.2 Mbps HSDPA phone featuring Windows Mobile 6, a 320x240 display, RIM-style "suretype" keys, GPS and WiFi.

The Nokia Liam replaces the E61i, being "narrower and more stylish," according to the spec sheet. Specs are what you'd expect of a next-gen MOR smartphone: QWERTY keyboard, 3.6 Mbps HSDPA, 320x320 display, GPS and WiFi. The 3.2 megapixel camera offers a third more pixels than Nokia could have gotten away with offering, but no price has been determined for this Q2 model yet.

The rumored BlackBerry 9000 turns out to be "merely" another entry in the 8000 series, albeit one that's "built on a brand new platform utilising the Tavor chipset providing blazing performance." It'll be sold in the UK from May 2008, sporting quad-band GSM and 3.6 Mbps HSDPA, a 624 Mhz CPU, super-high rest 480x320 display, a full QWERTY Keyboard and a 2 megapixel camera.
Source:http://blog.wired.com/

Family's shock £3,000 phone bill

A mother is having to find extra cash to pay a mobile phone bill after her son ran up a £3,000 debt
Oliver Jenkins, 17, of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, used a Vodafone phone to connect a computer to the internet.

His mother, Shirley, who pays his £40 a month bill, said they thought internet connection was included in the cost.

Vodafone has agreed to reduce her bill by about 25% but stressed that she was given information about internet usage when the phone was purchased.

Shortly before Christmas another customer from the North East ran up a £27,000 bill by doing the same thing.

'Stunned'

Oliver, an engineering student, said he connected his laptop to his phone for about one hour per day to run up the bill.

Ms Jenkins, a chef, said she was stunned when she saw the bill.

"I was stunned beyond belief. I felt like collapsing in a heap," she said.

"I did not realise there would be a limit (on internet use).

"I thought that as it was internet enabled it was unlimited."

Even though she has come to an agreement with Vodafone she said she will still struggle to pay the bill.
Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk

Vodafone roaming cut slammed

A hickup in Vodafone's international cellphone roaming service in Australia for the past week needs to be taken more seriously, according to the Telecommunications Users Association.

New Zealand customers roaming on the Vodafone Australia network have been unable to make or receive calls during the past week, because of a sharp rise in international cellphone use.

Vodafone said that meant the issue was out of its hands.

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Ernie Newman said that was "unconvincing, unprofessional and unacceptable".

Roaming was not a luxury but a core service. "For Vodafone New Zealand to distance itself from what appears to be a disastrous mis-forecast of traffic by its Australian sister company just won't do."

Vodafone NZ spokesman Paul Brislen said phones could be quickly switched to use another network in Australia. Customers needed to go into their settings function, search for a list of alternative networks and select one.

He said prices for texts and calls were the same for most customers regardless of the network.

Source:http://www.stuff.co.nz